How to Decide Weights & Reps
Lifting weights can be a great way to build muscle and ultimately lose fat. Since muscles work to burn fat even when the body is at rest, just having more of it constantly works towards toning the body. According to the website Building-Muscle101.com, the focus should be on the quality, not the quantity of weight reps when you're looking for results.
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Instructions
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Find your single repetition maximum. This refers to the amount of weight you are physically able to lift for one rep. For example, if you are doing a bicep curl, determine how much weight you can curl for one single rep. If you can do more than one curl with a 30 pound weight, it is too light; if you cannot do it at all with a 50 pound weight, it is too much. The weight you can curl in a single rep is the single repetition maximum, which in this case may be around 40 pounds. You can use this number, which will be different for each type of exercise, to determine how much weight you should lift to maximize muscle building.
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Input the one repetition maximum, also called the 1RM, number into a repetition maximum calculator to determine the percentage of muscle strength the body uses when you lift certain amounts of weight. For example, if the one rep max is 100 (using 100 percent of the muscles' strength for a single rep), lifting 70 lbs. would take 70 percent of the muscle strength in the body according to the calculator on the BodyBuilding.com website (Find a link in References.) This percentage will be used to help determine how many reps of each exercise you will do.
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Determine the number of reps you should lift based on the maximum weight percentages. According to the FitnessProsBodyBuilding.com website, to maximize muscle gain, you should aim to lift 70 percent to 80 percent of the 1RM weightm which should allow you to reach about 6 to 10 reps. For example, if the 1RM is 100, you should aim to lift 70 percent to 80 percent of that weight. This would mean lifting 70 to 80 lbs. as many times as you can--which means until you can no longer continue without breaking form. The number of reps should fall between six and 10.
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Adjust as you grow stronger. You will eventually find yourself lifting the same weight for more reps. Once you are able to lift 80 percent of the maximum weight for more than 10 reps, it is time to reassess the 1RM. Calculate a new 1RM weight, and work from there as you did the first time. It is important to adjust the weight as muscle strength grows so that the improvements continue to increase.
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